I write about events that happen to me and around the world from a writer's point of view. Nothing in my life ever goes smoothly. My focus is on young adult and children's authors, but occasionally I will bring you an adult author. It is my pleasure to introduce new books and authors to my readers. Writing is my life! By Barbara Ehrentreu

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Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Welcome Guest Author Susan M. Strecker

I meant to put this on here on Friday, but as you know, real life gets in the way. So here it is now only a few days late!Susan Strecker was my guest on my radio show: Red River Radio Tales from the Pages on Thursday, February 23, 2017. If you click on the link you can hear this great show! To help you learn more about her I am including that interview here on the blog and also I am giving you the blurbs and excerpts from her wonderful books: Night Blindness and Nowhere Girl.Here is the interview:

1 1.Where were you born and where do you live now?

I I was born in Stamford, Connecticut and grew up in Madison, Connecticut. I’ve lived in Essex, Connecticut with my husband and kids since 2009.

2.Besides writing, what do you like to do? Do you have any hobbies?

I grew up riding horses and quickly learned that the responsibility of owning a horse (or being their person, as a horse person would say) was more of a lifestyle than a sport or hobby. I rode and competed all over the country all through my childhood, college and afterwards. My kids, Cooper and Ainsley, started riding almost as soon as they could walk. Now I am loving being a horse show mom and helping them take care of their ponies. I also love watching my kids play lacrosse. When I have a free moment, I needlepoint belts and love to read.

3.Who or what influenced you to begin writing? What was your first piece of writing and when did you write this?

My mother has been my biggest influence on my writing career. When I was little, my family spent a lot of time fishing on boats. I felt bad for the fish and didn’t want to hurt them with hooks. To give me something else to do, my mom would bring me a notebook and pens and tell me to write stories about our adventures. I’d have to say that my first piece of writing was about a little girl who was on a boat with her big brothers and I wrote it when I was six.

4.How did you get the idea for your first novel, Night Blindness?

I wrote Night Blindness as a tribute to my dad, who died of cancer several years ago. He was one of the greatest men I have ever known and I wanted to have something permanent inspired by him. There’s so much of my dad in Sterling (the main character’s father) and I loved including bits of real life into a work of fiction. I get such a thrill when a fan tells me that Sterling was his or her favorite character in that book.

5.Please take us through the path to publication for your first novel. How did this change your life?

How much time do you have? With the help of my fabulously talented development editor, Suzanne Kingsbury, I created a specific and methodical system for querying literary agents. After a year and 63 rejection letters, the amazing and lovely Lisa Gallagher took a chance and signed me. She gave me the statistics of just how hard it is to sell books to publishing houses and that there were no guarantees. But, she is a genius and eleven days after she signed me, she sold my book at auction. Five publishing houses bid on Night Blindness. Thomas Dunne Books bought Night Blindness and signed me for a second book, as well. The publishing process changed my life in that I became 100% dedicated to writing and becoming a novelist.

6.When did you get the idea for your second novel, Nowhere Girl?

I was listening to the radio when a Red Hot Chili Peppers song came on called “Scar Tissue”. I love that band and immediately felt connected to the song. It evoked so many images of what scar tissue could mean, and I thought it’d be a great title for a book. I went home that night and started writing- which was a pretty bad idea. I had no beginning, no middle, no end, no plot and no characters- just a great title. This book ended up being the second one involved in my deal with Thomas Dunne. Once it went to production, my team and I decided on a different title, Nowhere Girl. But it never would have been written if I hadn’t heard that Chili Peppers song.

7.Did having experience from your first novel prepare you for what you had to do with Nowhere Girl?

The experience of working with crazy talented people prepared me for my second book more than anything else. Writing is a craft and like any other skill, the more it’s practiced, the easier it gets. Of course, I still have plenty of days when I have nothing to say and I use the backspace button on my computer a lot. But, the support system Suzanne Kingsbury and Lisa Gallagher and my team at Thomas Dunne Books have created for me has helped me tremendously. Also, having been through book tours, publicity, signings and interviews, I had a better idea of what to expect the second time around.

8.Please take our listeners through a typical day of writing for you.

When my kids are in school, I try to write from the minute they get on the bus until they get home. I will also write in the orthodontist’s office, during the seven-minute halftime at a lacrosse game and at four o’clock in the morning when I wake up with an idea. When I’m not editing a client’s work, I make myself write 2000 words a day. It doesn’t sound like much- it’s only about six pages. But, for every 300-page book I write, there are about 150 pages in the cut file. So, if I cut 1000 words because the scene just doesn’t work, I really have to write 3000 words that day. The 2000-word rule only applies to my first drafts. Once I start editing and rewriting, it’s a bit of a free for all. The first draft of a book is an entirely different story than what ends up in bookstores. So the rewriting and editing process is slow, often painful and never easy. Once I start that stage, I just make myself work and write and rewrite until my kids come home. I have also been known to bribe myself with cookies to motivate myself to finish a scene or a chapter.

9.What are you doing to promote your work either in person or online?

I have become a one-man band. I contacted every bookstore I was at during my first tour to ask if I could come back when Nowhere Girl came out. I also called local TV stations and newspapers and told them I had a second book. I am shameless with promoting myself on social media. I’d never used Twitter before I signed with Thomas Dunne. Nor did I have a website. Now I do whatever I can to get my name and my books out there. I hired a publicist for my second book, and she was tremendously helpful in getting me into new bookstores. Since Nowhere Girl launched in March, 2016, I have done 37 bookstore appearances, talked to students at eleven elementary, middle and high schools, given nine radio and TV interviews, been featured in four newspapers and have traveled to more than twenty book clubs to talk about Nowhere Girl and my writing. Many people reach out to me via my website or social media and I’ve been honored to be a frequent guest lecturer at writing conferences and workshops. Marketing and promoting myself and my books is a full-time job and one I knew nothing about before I got signed with Thomas Dunne. It’s exhausting and there’s a huge learning curve, but I love every minute of it.

11.Do you have any tips for beginning writers?

Write. And then write. And then write some more. No matter what- just keep writing. And give yourself permission to write crap (pardon my language). A lot of days I have nothing to say and no inspiration. But, I make myself write anyway, fully aware that I may chuck the whole passage in the cut folder the next day. But, if I can salvage one paragraph or a sentence, or even just a thought, it’s worth it. And don’t ever expect to get it right the first time around. Sloppy, messy writing is the foundation of what will eventually become the finished product.

12.What WIF’s are you working on now? Are you planning a sequel to either of your novels?

I am currently working on my fifth book, tentatively titled, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. I love music and often get inspiration from songs. That title is the name of a Neil Young song and it’s so fitting for the subject. This book will be dedicated to my grandmother who passed away last year at the age of 100. Grammie was the matriarch of my family and was the high priestess of a remote group of cabins in upstate New York where I spent every summer and many winter weekends growing up. Woodland was the stage of every milestone and best memory of my childhood. It’s also immune to technology, modernization and the worries of the world. And it happens to be a place that you can’t get to from here. Hence, the title. It’s a profoundly personal book and a tremendous responsibility to make sure I do justice to this very special place. I will not write a sequel- ever. Nelson DeMille (who I worship) wrote a sequel to one of my favorite books and he said it was the hardest thing he’s ever done and would probably never do it again. That pretty much scared me away from sequels. Also, by the time I rewrite the ending to a book ten or twelve or fifty times, I truly feel like the story is over.

13. Are you a plotter or a "pantser"?

I am freakishly organized and have an unnatural love of lists, spreadsheets and label makers. So, I guess that makes me a plotter. My kids keep me running all the time and I have to be a planner to fit everything in. Also, I love the feeling of crossing things off my to-do list. It makes me soooo happy!

(If you listen to my radio interview with Susan she talks about being a "pantser" in her writing. She says she never knows where a story is going until it ends.)You can listen here to that interview.

Here are the blurbs for both Night Blindness and Nowhere Girl

A future as bright as the stars above the Connecticut shore lay before Jensen Reilly and her high school sweetheart, Ryder, until the terrible events of an October night left Jensen running from her family and her first love. Over the years that followed, Jensen buried her painful past, and now, married to a charismatic artist, she has created a new life far away from the unbearable secret of that night.

When Jensen's father, Sterling, is diagnosed with a brain tumor, she returns to her childhood home for the first time in thirteen years, and the memories of her old life come flooding back along with the people she's tried to escape. Torn between her life in Santa Fe with her free-spirited husband, Nic, and the realization that it is time to face her past, Jensen must make a terrifying decision that threatens to change her life again—this time forever.

An emotionally thrilling debut set during a New England summer, Susan Strecker's Night Blindness is a compelling novel about the choices we make, the sanctity of friendship, and the power of love.

In Susan Strecker's Nowhere Girl, sixteen-year-old Savannah Martino is strangled to death in an abandoned house. The police rule Savannah’s murder a random attack of opportunity, which prompts the small New Jersey town to instigate a curfew and cancel football games. Isolated and afraid, Savannah’s sister, Cady, continues to communicate with Savannah through dreams. Cady knows Savannah in ways no one else knew: The beautiful, ethereal twin everyone thought was an angel was actually on the road to self-destruction.

Years later a chance encounter while researching her latest novel coincides with an unexpected call from the once-rookie cop on Savannah’s case, Patrick Tunney, now a detective, who tells Cady that Savannah’s case has been reopened. Through new evidence, it has been determined that Savannah’s death wasn’t a random attack and that whoever killed her sister loved her.

Despite years of interviewing convicted killers, profilers, and psychiatrists for her bestselling thrillers, Cady isn’t prepared for the revelation that someone close to her could have killed her sister. Cady is drawn into a labyrinth of deception and betrayal reaching all the way back to her childhood that will force her to find the strength she never knew she had in order to face the truth. My Review of Night Blindness

I read Susan's first book, Night Blindness. I found this book to be readable and a page turner. In the beginning of the book Jensen is living in Colston with her husband, Nicco and modeling for him and his friends. She has night blindness since the death of her brother, Will. At a birthday celebration for her she receives a phone call from her mother back in Connecticut that her father has a heart tumor. She leaves immediately and finds herself engulfed in childhood memories and family drama. As her father's illness takes up her entire summer she also reconnects with Will's best friend, Ryder, with whom she has a deep connection. In a coincidence, he turns out to be her father's doctor. As she relives all of her childhood experiences she forms a strong bond with her father and realizes she cannot go back to her old life until she solves this mystery of her brother's death and the cause of her night blindness. In doing this she finds that maybe everything she has thought was her life is suddenly changed. I really enjoyed reading this book and wanted to know more about this character as she struggled to make sense of events as they changed daily. The author writes her character with care and the other characters are well drawn too. After reading it, I wanted to read more of her work. This author writes with a compelling voice.

I give it 5 sailboats:

Please tell us where we can find your books. (links to website, etc.)

My books are available at major bookstores everywhere as well as online at amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Thank you so much to my Guest Author Susan M. Strecker. It has been a pleasure to have you on my blog. Please return when you have a new book!Until the next time, I don't have another guest for my blog, so if you are interested, please let me know. On my next radio show for Red River Radio Tales from the Pages on Blog Talk Radio on March 23, 2017 at 4PM EST my guests will be poet Lily Swarn and author Linda L. Kane. I know I said a lot of things that were political on my last post and unfortunately, the climate has not changed at all. I just keep hoping each day that things will get better!! At least it is getting closer to Spring!!!